Voice of The Fallen

far away a voice is calling
someone long ago, who’s fallen
I listen hard and hear it say
hear me on memorial day

by Alex Kaye
at 2008-12-04

GOA.Luke*BK*

It shouldn't be me typing here on Memorial day reminding us of why we should remember those that served our country. Better to have just one of our soldiers back than another remembrance from those that have never been there to die. Thank you Gen. Luke for Alex Kaye's short but intense poem.

My father is 86, still going strong, but most everyone he has served with or knew have passed on. We are losing 1,000 vets everyday from WW2 now, according to Ken Burns the historian. My dad was a fighter pilot in WW2, flying a Stearman Biplane in the Virgin Islands looking for U-Boats. Later he was transferred to the Black Forrest Carrier in the Pacific, flew around New Guinea, fought at Saipan, Okinawa, etc. Was a 1st Lt at war's end but was demoted to Sergeant after the war to cut costs. Then when Korea came around, he was in a group called the "Flying Peons", they were Sergeants leading LTs from flight school in Korea. After Korea and at the beginning of Vietnam he taught fighter school at China Lake, Ca. the early version of TOP GUN.Over the last twenty years or so he has revealed some stories of past events or actions I won't go into here but he has always said how lucky he was to get through everything that happened.

My mother-in-law was born in Osaka Japan, she was a schoolgirl during WW2, she can not watch any war movies , when she was in Osaka she watched as the B-29 Bombers dropped their bombs over her city, like little  sticks falling through the air, she said. What can I say but experience the irony of life through them. My father who bombed the Japanese and a schoolgirl that ran to the nearest slit trench to hide. And yet they are both here today a part of my family.  Oh yeah, Dad was also a sponser for a family from Vietnam, from a village where no one had ever seen a car. Except the planes that flew over their village . He taught them how to drive, bank and survive here in the USA, they went on to become Doctors, Pharmacists and new members of our American culture. He is their American Godfather.

It's a little funny how life twists our fates together, with the past and present  mixing a strange blend of possibilities for the future. Karma is what I say, for good or bad it's how we live our lives.                      Muja`de' *BK*

Happy Memorial day from Canada

Thanks Muja for the short life history, sounds like you have quite the family, nice to hear.